Purchasing

Tacoma Public Schools encourages suppliers to become familiar with the contents of these documents. The Purchasing Department is responsible for ensuring that district purchases represent the best value possible, both in terms of price and in terms of non-price considerations such as service, timeliness, quality and supplier performance.
Suppliers should never provide services or materials to the District without a Purchase Order unless the purchase is made with a District credit card (Visa). Suppliers wishing to do business with the District must agree to certain terms and conditions. The documents on this page will be updated as changes occur. These are provided below:

Tacoma Public Schools District Contractual Terms and Conditions Template. (PDF)

​Purchasing Department Code Of Ethics

The Tacoma Public Schools (TPS) Purchasing Department recognizes that employees of the Department are public employees. As such, these employees have the responsibility to uphold the public trust and to refrain from using their position for private benefit. It is the policy of the TPS Purchasing Department that employees shall, in addition to all other expectations and job requirements, refrain from conflicts of interest and avoid the appearance of unethical or compromising practices in business relationships, actions and communications. TPS Purchasing professionals must have a highly developed sense of professional ethics to protect their own as well as our District’s reputation for fair dealing. To strengthen ethical awareness, and to provide guidelines for staff, the TPS Purchasing Department promotes the following code of ethics:

Always give first consideration to the objectives and policies of TPS, while striving to obtain the maximum value for each dollar of expenditures.

Never engage in unscrupulous practices and misrepresentations; recognizing mutually profitable business relations are based upon honesty and fair dealings.

Always be courteous, considerate, prompt, and businesslike with those whom we deal with including employers, employees, vendors and the general public.

Never allow political considerations or other conflicting outside influences to enter the relationships with vendors or employees.

Never accept gifts or other things of value from vendors, where the intent is to influence the purchaser, complying with all current laws and statutes pertaining to acceptances of gifts and gratuities.

Always seek to continually increase competition in vendor selection and endeavor to prevent any collusive activities among vendors.

Always make every reasonable effort to negotiate an equitable and mutually agreeable settlement of any controversy with a supplier.